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The politics and performance of the post-Mao Chinese government (1976 to the present) in the areas of foreign economic relations and Sino-American normalization are examined. Realizing that the four modernizations program for bringing up to date agriculture, industry, science and technology, and defense, initiated by Mao's successors in 1977, was too ambitious, China's current leadership is in the process of adjusting, reorienting, and retrenching the program into something more pragmatic, realistic, and attainable. Included among the topics discussed in this publication are: China's international trade and finance; China's capital construction and the prospects for foreign participation; China's hard currency export potential and import capacity through 1985; Sino-Japanese economic relations; China's grain imports; Chinese general agreement on tariff and trade; normalization of U.S. commercial relations with China; recent developments in China's trade practices; emerging functions of formal legal institutions in China's modernization; recent developments in China's treatment of intellectual property; U.S. firms in China trade; overcoming hindrances and impediments in U.S.-Chinese commercial negotiations; and the U.S.-China Joint Economic Committee. (RM)

The policies and performance of the post-Mao Chinese government (1976 to the present) in the four modernization areas of industry, agriculture, science and technology, and the military are examined. Realizing that the program to modernize the economy of the People's Republic of China, which was initiated by Mao's successors in 1977, was much too ambitious, the current Chinese leadership is in the process of adjusting, reorienting, and retrenching the four modernizations into something more pragmatic, realistic, and attainable. Included among the topics are: economic growth; major developments in the Chinese economy since Mao's death; how the Chinese transportation network has been expanded to meet economic needs; population growth and control; the different economic and social roles of the urban and rural labor forces; why Chinese modernization has not entailed urbanization; how key industries are adjusting to meet the needs of modernizing China; plans for reforming industry; rural industrialization; agricultural productivity; science and elitism; Chinese attitudes towards technology transfer; whether or not military modernization has remained in its position as last in priority; and resource allocation for the military. (RM)

Countries of the Western Pacific allied with the United States--Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan--are seriously threatened by Soviet expansion and Sino-Soviet rivalry. At present when the United States military resources are stretched thin, responsibility for defense of these prosperous free states should be assumed by the states themselves, and Japan especially must play a far greater strategic role in maritime defense. An organic Pacific security community that would be buttressed by its own economic dynamism should be created. Such a Pacific security community is impossible without the presence of the United States as an active partner. It can therefore be possible only when the United States once more is morally committed and militarily able to respond to the ominous growth of Soviet military power. Included are the texts of the Shanghai Communique, February 27, 1972; the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, the United States and the People's Republic of China, January 1, 1979; and the Taiwan Relations Act, April 10, 1979. (BZ)